Darryl Strawberry knows what it looks like when an athlete gets pulled into the spotlight for a drug suspension, and he didn’t waste time offering Nick Kyrgios a different kind of response.
The Mets icon, who fought cocaine addiction during his own playing career, said the tennis star’s provisional suspension for cocaine use should be viewed through a more human lens. Kyrgios, 31, was suspended on Wednesday after testing positive from a sample collected at an event in Mallorca in June, according to the International Tennis Integrity Agency.
“I think it’s truly unfair when people punish people, especially athletes, that have substance abuse problems,” Strawberry told TMZ Sports. “I had it for a very long time and I received the same kind of treatment from the public. A lot of times we don’t understand what a person is going through emotionally, mentally, inside.”
Strawberry framed substance abuse as something deeper than a headline or a rule violation. “Substance abuse is just something to escape from.
You can be great as an athlete and have all the talent you want, but at the same time, when you’re broken on the inside, you need to be healed on the inside. And that’s all it is really for him.”
The former Mets and Yankees slugger, who won one World Series with New York and two more with the Yankees, said his own path has given him a different perspective now. Strawberry was suspended by MLB on three occasions, but today he says he’s in a much different place.
“I’ve been in recovery a long time,” he said. “I’m a minister of the gospel now.
You know, people have written me off. We’re not God and we shouldn’t play that.”
He followed that with a simple message about second chances: “Recovery is possible and it’s good. People have to give people a chance. We don’t know what’s hurting them.”
Kyrgios, meanwhile, responded publicly with an apology after the positive test became known. The Australian, who reached a career high of No. 11 in the world and made the Wimbledon final in 2022, said he accepted responsibility.
“I made a huge mistake and I take full responsibility for it,” Kyrgios said in an apology posted to social media. “I’m not going to make excuses, but I do want to give some context about where I’ve been. The last couple of years of injuries have taken a huge toll on me both physically and mentally.
“My body hasn’t been able to do what my mind expects it to and coming to terms with being near the end of my career has been harder than I ever imagined.”
Kyrgios has played in only eight tournaments since the start of 2023, and the suspension adds another difficult chapter to a career that has always carried a mix of talent and turbulence. He’s been one of tennis’s most recognizable figures for years, known as much for his charisma and flash as for the controversies that have followed him.
That includes his history of criticizing others over doping cases. Kyrgios previously called out world No.
1 Jannik Sinner and former No. 1 Simona Halep after both were suspended for positive drug tests, while also pointing out that he had never failed a test himself.
Sinner tested positive for Clostebol twice in 2024, with less than one-billionth of a gram found in his samples. He said the substance was ingested accidentally after his physio used it to treat a cut on his finger, and experts said it would not have affected performance. After an investigation, the International Tennis Integrity Agency determined there was “no fault or negligence” by Sinner, and he received a three-month ban.
Kyrgios blasted that outcome, calling it “ridiculous” and taking shots at Sinner whenever he had the chance. After Sinner accepted the punishment, Kyrgios wrote, “Sad day for tennis. Fairness in tennis does not exist,”
Halep, who tested positive for the anti-anemia drug roxadustat during the 2022 U.S. Open and was officially notified and provisionally suspended in October, also weighed in on Kyrgios’s case. She hasn’t played since early 2025.
“Never kick someone when they’re down,” she wrote on Instagram. “Life has a strange way of changing positions. And an even stranger way of revealing the difference between an accident and a choice.”
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